With the Tamil Nadu government setting a three month deadline to clear the city of its filth, environment and waste management experts say the focus should be more on recycling garbage.
“It is a good initiative. But the government should also focus on recycling the debris generated. We cannot stop the public from generating garbage. So, we should focus more on how to recycle most of them,” says M.B. Nirmal, chairman of Exnora International, an NGO which focuses on preventing environmental degradation.
“Since tonnes of waste is being collected everyday, we cannot afford to compost all of them. So, we need to segregate them so that composting and recycling become easy for the Chennai Corporation officials,” Mr. Nirmal says.
Though the Corporation has debris collecting vehicles with two separate boxes for degradable and non-degradable items, the public need to pitch in to help the Corporation sanitation workers, he said.
“The garbage dumping yards in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi need to be cleaned up in view of the monsoon”, Corporation Mayor M Subramanian says.
“If we don’t clean up the dumping yards now, water will stagnant when the rains come,” he said.
“There is garbage everywhere. But how well you handle them is what that matters. So, the government should not only clean up the city but should find a proper recycling system in place so that we can minimise the pollution,” says Sandeep Verma, who has relocated to Chennai two years back.
Expressing concern over garbage strewn around various parts of the city and the stagnant rain and drainage water, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had on August 8 announced in the assembly launching of the mass cleaning programme.
The government was committed to ensure healthy living environment for the people of the state, she stated.
